Well, the "build magical gardens to keep evil at bay" part sounds interesting.

In any case, the only other Jewel games I have are the dsiwares puzzle quest and jewel adventure, which are more like little RPGs. I have never bought one of these "jewel games with huge levels, minigames and a dramatic story to go with" so this could be a nice one to call it "my jewel match game".

Hi Morpheel
I have played this on my PC, and it's a reasonable addition to this particular Jewel Match series. I loved the first two games with their ambient sounds and sparkly jewels. It's a bit different from the usual full screen of falling jewels, and there are a load of levels. I'm still in the early stages as New Leaf came along, however. There are some varied reviews of the game on the UK Amazon website which may help you further.
The "gardens" bit is a little bit restrictive - you can design your own garden better in New Leaf ......
However, I am a sucker for Jewel match games, and I am considering downloading it onto my 3DSXL so I can have it on-the-go.
If you can get it for two dollars on the Mexican eShop, I don't think you can go far wrong.
Cheers!

First of all, I really like the graphics. Although the intro scene was presented in slightly blurry still images, on the top screen there's always the castle you're currently on and it looks pretty nice even if a little lifeless. The gameplay graphics are nice too, as nice as a grid of little colored crystals can get. Not too small, not blurry. Then again, I usually like flowers, castles and jewels in general so I may be biased on that.

The main gameplay works just right and the game seems to be good at making sure there's always a nice combo available every few seconds so it feels very smooth. The levels themselves go from super short to giant beasts and back to normal sized kinda at random, but they haven't gotten too hard so far, only long... Which is nice because I decided to play in normal mode instead of relaxed/casual as I usually do.

I like the way the levels are arranged by "rooms", they're like mini zelda puzzle dungeons with locked doors, chained jewels, fog and even crates. It's fun and it gets addictive.

The picture puzzles are nice too, a little bit on the easy side but the pictures themselves are quite pretty.... The "hidden item" sequences on the other hand are not so nice, I have had to play the same one at least 4 times now and the items are always in the same places, and they are mostly incredibly small and are usually of the same colors as the background so the scene looks kinda bleh and it ends up feeling more like a chore.

The magic garden part looks nice, but is kinda limited. You can plant seeds you find in the levels and water the plants to see them grow and you must use insecticide every now and then to kill pesky bugs. And That's fun, I enjoy that kind of thing, I really do, but you can't do much in the garden besides that- and then as soon as you plant something and it makes the bar on the top screen fill a bit.... You get sent directly to the next level, no warnings, no questions. It kinda feels like a slap in the face when it happens "OH YOU WANT TO KILL THAT BUG? SORRY NEXT LEVEL, LOL".

That brings me to another thing I noticed in the hour or so I spent playing this non-stop. The menus are kinda confusing, or is it more like a hub world?

You have a fountain with five black crystals, each one seems to be a character and I assume each one owns a castle you must rebuild. Even though I completed the first garden and the second crystal became clear enough to see the person inside I am not able to break it yet (like I did with the first one). I assume I need to complete the first castle first instead. Why? I don't know. Maybe my uncle Dwarf doesn't want me to focus on someone else before I finish rebuilding his castle.

After selecting the crystal you are sent to their castle and see a menu with things you can buy with jewels (castle parts) under that is an icon that says shop that brings you to a (duuuhhhh) item shop where you can buy garden supplies, lives, upgrades and stuff. After you select the ok button you're sent to the garden and from there you can begin a new level by selecting the ok button again.

I just find that layout kinda confusing.... A better menu like a mini map or at least just plain icons with "REBUILD CASTLE", " MANAGE GARDEN", "SHOP" and "NEXT LEVEL" would have been tidier I think.

There's also no real explanation of why do we need to grow flowers, or at least I missed that part of the intro. The only indicator that the garden helps is the fact that it has a progression bar and that the villain seems to dislike it (Lord NotVoldemort is apparently afraid of flowers).

Huh... Well I think that covers my experience with this game so far! What's left...? Oh yeah, the music. It's nice and calm and the sound effects have a soothing pinball-machine quality to them.... If you find pinball machines going bing bing bing and ringdindindinding soothing, that's it!

Overall it is a nice addictive game with weird design choices: a flawed gem, as the official NintendoLife review mentioned.

@Morpheel: Apologies for late response. Been unavoidably busy elsewhere for a couple of weeks and missed your posting. Good review, thanks, and I think you've pretty much summed up my experience. A mixed bag (or a flawed gem). See you round. Merry Christmas!